Thursday, December 28, 2006

The GOP's $3 Billion Propaganda Organ

By Robert Parry (A Special Report)December 27, 2006

The American Right achieved its political dominance in Washington over the past quarter century with the help of more than $3 billion spent by Korean cult leader Sun Myung Moon on a daily propaganda organ, the Washington Times, according to a 21-year veteran of the newspaper.

George Archibald, who describes himself “as the first reporter hired at the Washington Times outside the founding group” and author of a commemorative book on the Times’ first two decades, has now joined a long line of disillusioned conservative writers who departed and warned the public about extremism within the newspaper.

In an Internet essay on recent turmoil inside the Times, Archibald also confirmed claims by some former Moon insiders that the cult leader has continued to pour in $100 million a year or more to keep the newspaper afloat. Archibald put the price tag for the newspaper’s first 24 years at “more than $3 billion of cash.”

At the newspaper’s tenth anniversary, Moon announced that he had spent $1 billion on the Times – or $100 million a year – but newspaper officials and some Moon followers have since tried to low-ball Moon’s subsidies in public comments by claiming they had declined to about $35 million a year.

The figure from Archibald and other defectors from Moon’s operation is about three times higher than the $35 million annual figure.

1 comment:

Excellent Blog! I have been reading your other blog for a few years now. Wonderful reporting! I have your two books, which are excellent.

With the wealth of information and knowledge that you have, I hope you are able to get it all out in the open.

I have commented on my own blog about the need for investigations into the current administration. Investigations which I hope will lead to further investigations of the past information about which you have written.

With such a large right-wing infrastructure to combat such investigations, how would you purpose the investigations to proceed?

With the Moonies holding so much sway in Washington D.C., is it possible that they have lined the pockets of Democrats, so that the resistance will be minimal?